


Here

by sonshineandshowers



Series: After [1]
Category: Prodigal Son (TV 2019)
Genre: Post 1x10
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-03
Updated: 2020-01-03
Packaged: 2021-02-26 04:02:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,723
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21946999
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sonshineandshowers/pseuds/sonshineandshowers
Summary: You’re here. I can’t tell you what that means. Gifted for the 2019 holiday fic exchange.
Relationships: Gil Arroyo & Malcolm Bright, Jackie Arroyo & Malcolm Bright
Series: After [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1590250
Comments: 3
Kudos: 50





	Here

**Author's Note:**

  * For [wellthatisbloodyfantastic](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=wellthatisbloodyfantastic).



Friday's rainy welcome mat curled between his toes. Branched into his socks, and up his legs it rose. Bled through cotton to his skin to roll back down again. Dripped through hair, marred cheek and chin. Falling. Falling. Falling.

Stone pulled him up with enrapturing arms. Kept him from washing away in the blithering storm. Roughed his back, reminding _you're still here_. _The deluge will pass, and you'll remain_. A tiny whisper amongst the pain.

Whimpers crawled around his chest, not contained by short sleeves, taking any path to exit. Unrequited tears and rain mingling, yet failing to become one. Failing to do anything but fall.

Rivulets licked his chest, carving and running to a stream. Shakes overtook him, from chill or emotion, unseen. He, his cold comfort, and...a shoe?

A black sneaker edged into the corner of his vision, and soon after, the rain stopped. A firm hand around a wooden handle stemmed the flow. Dull pattering brought white noise over their breathing.

"Why here, kid?" a patient, level voice asked.

Tapping filled the lengthy pause, only the umbrella to dance around. A sniff amongst shivers. "S-she was warm."

He was anything but. T-shirt and drawstring pants plastered to him, he trembled in the bitter January air. A few more degrees, and it would've tipped into snow territory. A sky less downpour, and there would've been a hope of his cast surviving. Falling. Falling.

"Hey!" Gil grabbed his shoulder to prevent his tip to the ground.

Malcolm grappled for Gil’s coat, leaving behind handprints crying for help. His jaw tested its hinges, jittering in the chill. "'S cold.” 

Gil would have shrugged out of his coat if he could, but Malcolm had tied himself to it. Probably also wouldn’t do much good without getting him out of his wet clothes first. “Let me take you home.”

Upset, incoherent, intoxicated - it was easier when Malcolm showed up at his apartment or called him over. Without the wherewithal to do either, Gil was left to coax Malcolm to his car. Caging an animal was less difficult.

“Need her,” he shared quietly, letting go of Gil’s coat and turning his cheek against the stone.

 _So do I. All the time. Right now._ Gil shifted his weight from front to back foot, his sneaker sinking further into the grass. "Do you remember what she used to tell you when you got lost?"

"St-stay w...ith the living." He brought his free hand to his head, trying to rub away the persistent haze of confusion. “Why didn’t he kill me?”

Counting his worth in coin and others' in paper, reasoning on why they needed him alive was a losing battle. He'd fill his pockets and sink to the bottom refuting any answer to the question. "The whole team needs you."

He hugged the stone, squeezing its warmth. “Y-you said you need solves…n-not me.”

Gil shook his shoulder, trying to gather some sense. “I need you. _We_ need you.”

One a penny, two a penny - “I d-don't think they'll r-recognize me."

"You're still you," he assured. "Your 100% pain in the ass self.” He had the pinpoint, muddy shoes, and concern to prove it. “They're all asking for you."

“Ninety-five.” Malcolm quieted, slumping into the stone. Raindrops beat the umbrella, throwing water at Gil’s sneakers. Taunted engulfing him too.

Gil’s knees twinged in protest and he shifted his weight again. Cloudy eyes gazed back at him, harboring a whack-ca-cophony of ideas clanging off pots and pans, finding no escape. Filling not a dream nor a bucket. "The walls, the floor, the chains - I-I-I can’t get warm.”

"I'm warm." Gil spread his fingers wide. "Take my hand and see."

Malcolm’s free hand tentatively stretched toward Gil’s, testing the line, yet withdrew before connecting. On a few breaths and a second pass, his hand slowly reached for Gil’s and rested inside. A sob cracked his frozen shell, drooping his head to his chest. ”Everything hurts,” he admitted.

Gil squeezed his hand. The bandage at his side had been soaked through along with the rest of him. No position had been comfortable, so he couldn't imagine the ground ranked high on the list. And who knew how long he'd been sitting on it. "You're probably due a pain pill."

Opiates alone wouldn’t solve the problem. “I m-miss her. And hot tea. And a warm h-hug after a nightmare.”

“I miss her every day.” Her clothes remained in his closet and her nightstand still treasured her favorite keepsakes. His mind stockpiled every moment they had spent together, cataloging and recataloging lest he forget any one of them. “I’m a poor substitute. But I could help with the other things.”

“Please.”

Gil wrapped his arm behind Malcolm's neck and pulled him from Jackie to his chest. Sopping hair drenched his shoulder, Malcolm's ear resting inches from his mouth. “Let’s get you home.”

* * *

All his tears had settled into the tranquil sea. Dunked into the water fully clothed, as he thawed, he had the task of removing the weighted garments, wringing them out, and piling them to be later retrieved. His casted arm rested on the ledge, a soggy mess rivaling his clothing.

Every pore opened, welcoming warmth and yielding his grief. The tub in the guest bathroom wasn’t something he often used, yet at Gil’s preparation and direction, he found relief.

A t-shirt, loose button-up sweater, and lined fleece pants later, he emerged to a cup of tea and Gil waiting for him beside his bed. His gait revealed the hammering his body had endured, his bed calling to ease the suffering. Gil eased a pillow between Malcolm's side and the headboard, padding his wound in an attempt to make sitting more comfortable. "You redress that?"

"Yes."

"Let's wrap this," Gil pointed to the cast left out of one of the sweater sleeves. Gil encased the cast in a plastic bag, hoping to keep Malcolm's clothes dry. "Can get it redone in the morning."

Lick, stick - Malcolm's tongue searched for another way to arrange words to sound less like eating a depression-era sandwich, condiment upon condiment yet none disguising the taste. Lather the truth in ketchup and surely the outcome would be less damning. "The guest bed is made upstairs."

Twenty minutes of searching carried the weight of twenty years of caring for the man. Malcolm required the long haul, sticking around until he could stand to be alone. His kidnapping had only worsened that reality. "I'll take the couch. Closer in case you decide to go for another swim."

Gil pulled the blankets he'd piled over Malcolm, ensuring he was set with his restraints before retreating to the couch.

* * *

Tucked into opposite ends of the couch, they shared the same screen. The same scene of a woman going person to person through Central Park, offering selfies with her cat in exchange for a dollar. Folks turning away when they heard the first hint of someone approaching them. Nary a taker for a shot with the dappled feline. Yet the woman persisted, asking, presenting her prized companion. Continuing on when ignored once again.

"Isn't there something happier?" Malcolm asked, his fresh cast resting across his middle on top of a blanket.

"It's _Candid Camera_ ,” Gil rebutted.

The pane wasn't viewed the same. "It's sad."

Gil held the remote in his direction. "Do you want to pick something?"

"No."

After a few flicks past dramas he was purposely avoiding, comedies he wasn't in the right mindset for, and documentaries that would do little to improve his mood, he turned off the television. 

“I didn’t get to bring you coquito this year," Malcolm's voice emerged from the other end of the couch.

The time jump back a month to Christmas Eve threw Gil for a moment. “You were a little indisposed.”

Christmas carried an expectation of joy. Children's electric anticipation of Santa. The gift of smiles ripping through paper. Wonderment over how one person could deliver to the world in one night.

Unwrapping faces revealed veiled grief. A wife missing her husband while she rolled kringle. A husband longing for his wife's ability to fill the room even when it was the two of them. A mother's attempt at some form of familiarity via holiday dinner. A son's struggle to survive another nightmare.

They had rescued Malcolm from Lazar's grasp, and he was bobbing through the choppy waters of recovering. Some days he could take in air and some days he disappeared below the surface. “Jackie was better at this," Gil faulted himself.

“Hmm?”

“Consoling you,” he elaborated.

“'S not a prize." Wins were elusive anyway.

Gil clapped the back of the couch. “Remember the Christmas Eve you ended up in the reservoir in Central Park?”

Bickering with his mother, pajamas, a box, and a police call to Gil later. “Pretty sure Jackie dunked me in the tub just like you did last night.”

Gil's hand conducted the story. "You were purple and blue when I found you - thought we were going to spend the night in the ER.” He shook his head. “But she defrosted you, tucked you into bed, and poured me some coquito. Talked me out of chewing you out for not calling before wandering."

"I was out of it." The number of sedatives he had been experimenting with at the time had produced some unpredictable side effects.

"I know. I was scared. I’m more...patient now." And Malcolm was marginally better about reaching out.

“That was the first year I stayed with you for Christmas.” His memories rotated through a kiss of apple in a leftover slice of crumble for breakfast, unwrapping a leathery notepad to accompany their stakeouts, and relaxed rhythm of helping Gil and Jackie prepare dinner. "I'm sorry we missed this year."

"Don't." He wouldn’t let Malcolm apologize for the madman.

"We could make some coquito now," Malcolm offered.

Gil channeled his wife. "It's almost February - pretty sure that'd be some kind of blasphemy. Mixing that with your current drug cocktail would knock you on your ass anyway."

"Tea instead?"

"Sure."

Gil stopped and rested his hand on Malcolm's shoulder on his way to the kitchen. "Kid, I know she had the ear for your troubles, but I can try."

"You’re here.” Malcolm shrugged. “I…I can’t tell you what that means.”

"Right back atcha."

* * *

_fin_


End file.
